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The differences between outside sales engineers and solutions engineers can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. It typically takes 4-6 years to become both an outside sales engineer and a solutions engineer. Additionally, a solutions engineer has an average salary of $95,482, which is higher than the $79,145 average annual salary of an outside sales engineer.
The top three skills for an outside sales engineer include customer relationships, HVAC and product line. The most important skills for a solutions engineer are cloud, pre sales, and java.
| Outside Sales Engineer | Solutions Engineer | |
| Yearly salary | $79,145 | $95,482 |
| Hourly rate | $38.05 | $45.90 |
| Growth rate | 6% | 6% |
| Number of jobs | 113,925 | 123,287 |
| Job satisfaction | - | - |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 74% | Bachelor's Degree, 67% |
| Average age | 44 | 44 |
| Years of experience | 6 | 6 |
An outside sales engineer is both a specialist and a salesperson of scientific and technological products or services to businesses. You have an in-depth knowledge of the products and the engineering processes that make these products work so that you can demonstrate their benefits to customers. Outside sales engineers are technical customer service representatives working for businesses that sell engineering products or the makers - they are out in the field interacting, educating, and selling to potential customers.
A solutions engineer is an individual who assists customers in identifying their computer software needs and generates customized business software solutions for them. Solutions engineers collaborate with other department engineers to create practical demonstrations of proposed solutions and showcase them to the other members of the team. They are required to test the installed software and fix programming bugs that create errors with the system. Solutions engineers also maintain customer relations by providing post-installation follow-ups.
Outside sales engineers and solutions engineers have different pay scales, as shown below.
| Outside Sales Engineer | Solutions Engineer | |
| Average salary | $79,145 | $95,482 |
| Salary range | Between $55,000 And $113,000 | Between $68,000 And $134,000 |
| Highest paying City | - | San Francisco, CA |
| Highest paying state | - | California |
| Best paying company | - | ByteDance |
| Best paying industry | - | Start-up |
There are a few differences between an outside sales engineer and a solutions engineer in terms of educational background:
| Outside Sales Engineer | Solutions Engineer | |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 74% | Bachelor's Degree, 67% |
| Most common major | Business | Computer Science |
| Most common college | Northwestern University | Stanford University |
Here are the differences between outside sales engineers' and solutions engineers' demographics:
| Outside Sales Engineer | Solutions Engineer | |
| Average age | 44 | 44 |
| Gender ratio | Male, 91.2% Female, 8.8% | Male, 85.1% Female, 14.9% |
| Race ratio | Black or African American, 1.6% Unknown, 6.2% Hispanic or Latino, 7.9% Asian, 5.8% White, 78.2% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.3% | Black or African American, 1.4% Unknown, 6.1% Hispanic or Latino, 6.9% Asian, 10.8% White, 74.4% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.3% |
| LGBT Percentage | 7% | 7% |